Radio
by denverhockeygirl
Summary: What happens when Connie is kicked off the team for something she can't control? [song fic] [complete]


**Author's Note-** This is just me being bored and lethargic, as well as attempting to vent some of the frustration I've had in the last 3 months prior to learning I was kicked out of the league I played in.

**Disclaimer-**  Same thing as always… "_The Mighty Ducks belong to Disney I suppose, as do all the characters. If you really want to sue us, go ahead, you'll get some crappy pink skate guards, a worn Paul Kariya poster, some chocolate covered espresso beans that have been in my co-captain's hockey bag since out tournament in Vail 2 years ago and lots and lots of stale marshmallows. Plus a textbook from Jessi, cause she's sorta nerdy like that._" Also Radio belongs to the sick, sick demented souls I honour from Alkaline Trio.

~*~

_Shaking like a dog shittin' razorblades,  
waking up next to nothing after dreaming of you and me  
I'm waking up all alone, waking up so relieved  
while you're taking your time with apologies,  
I'm making my plans for revenge  
Red eyes on orange horizons  
If Columbus was wrong I'd drive straight off the edge  
I'd drive straight off the edge_

Connie's face was flushed with tears of frustration. With every gasp for air she made, or tear that spilt down her cheeks, she knew she was only further proving their point. Yet by the same token she knew not what else to do, for it was only proof that justice was nonexistent, logic was a fantasy and all those stories she had heard as a little kid, about following your dreams regardless of the obstacles that lay in the way, were like believing in unicorns and leprechauns or some other mythical object. Bullshit.

Taking the pillow from her disheveled bed where she had flung herself earlier, she chucked it at the poster adjacent to her. The soft cushion did nothing to alter the ecstatic look of the Men's Team Canada Olympic poster, their delighted faces only seemed to taunt her, showing what she could not longer have. In fury she kicked off the worn and tattered quilt from her bed, tangled in the sheet, and darted towards the wall. With one swift motion she tore down the poster of Paul Kariya, why have it if she were now only a puck bunny. Still the shredded glossy posters that she once adored, didn't comfort her. Tacked above her desk were pictures, lined up triumphantly, a timeline of her life, that had now ended. Starting with the most recent team picture at Eden Hall, to the one of the Goodwill Games, all the way to her District 5 Squirt team, she tore them off the way, slicing the smiling faces with her hands damp with tears. Glaring around her room, to the floor littered in shards of paper, she grabbed the old wooden stick from its position, propped up in a far corner, and stormed out.  
  
_Taking your own life with boredom,  
I'm taking my own life with wine -  
it helps you to rule out the sorrow,  
it helps me to empty my mind  
Making the most of a bad time  
I'm smoking the brains from my head  
Leaving the coal calling the kettle black and orange and red  
This kettle is seeing red_

First having left at a near march, she had broke into a run, out her front door to the driveway. Taking a tennis ball that had been abandoned in the lawn, she lined up against the garage door and with all her might, wound up for a slap shot, sending the ball flying, where it hit the dented aluminum door with a crash. The reverberating sound, refreshed memories of when she used to stand out here, back when played for District 5, back before she had retained any real skills, where she'd practice her shots. Envisioning the ice, carrying the puck down through centre ice, into the other team's zone, on a short handed break, winding up for a slap shot and sending the puck flying past the goalie, top shelf. Back when she was still allowed to play. Tears once against misted her sight as she stopped the ball as it bounced off the garage. The whole ordeal still vivid in her mind.

_I've got a big fat fuckin' bone to pick with you my darling  
In case you haven't heard I'm sick and tired of trying  
I wish you would take my radio to bathe with you,  
plugged in and ready to fall_

::flashback::

"Con, great practice today," said her coach, his eyes slightly devoid of contact, his words much more yielding than what was usually expected.

"Um thanks Coach, is that what you wanted me to talk about?" she asked dumbfounded, rocking side to side in her skates, the comforting feeling of dampness that bled through her equipment kissing her skin. Nothing was more fulfilling than getting off the ice after a practice, sweat dripping from every pore.

"Not exactly. Connie, I know you've been playing since you were a Mite. You're a superb hockey player… but as you know you guys are Midgets now. 16, 17 and 18, not 9 anymore. Most of those guys out there playing are full grown men, and I think it'd be best for your skills and your future as a hockey player to consider playing in a girl's league," he told her softly, yet the tone didn't hide the harsh realities of his words.

"You mean…" she paused in disbelief, eyes wide in shock. "You want me to play… chick hockey? No coach, no way. It's a different sport, it's for pussy ex-figure skaters who think they're hard core. For chicks who can't keep up. But I can, you know it as well as I do."

"I know. But I talked to your dad and he agrees. You're just going to wind up playing half ass hockey here and getting hurt, by some goon. You know what kind of future playing for a girl's league will hold for you? There are some amazing teams out there that you could be the star of. It could get you a college scholarship, help you get the Olympics."

"What about Julie?" she asked eyebrows knitted in incredulity. 

"She's not nearly as good as you, her future doesn't lie in hockey. And she's a goalie," he shrugged like it was an unwritten fact.

"Coach Riley… you're joking. I'm a Duck. I've played with these guys forever, I can't leave for some… chicks!" she spat in disgust, numb to everything. 

"Sorry Connie, we… we don't want you anymore…" he sighed looking the girl down and turning away.  
_  
Shaking like a dog shittin' razorblades,  
waking up next to nothing after dreaming of you and me  
I'm waking up all alone, waking up so relieved  
while you're taking your time with apologies,  
I'm planning out my revenge  
Red eyes on orange horizons  
If Columbus was wrong I'd drive straight off the edge  
I'm seeing red_

Inhaling deeply, attempting to ease her raspy forced gasps for air, Connie took her stick, with all her might and chucked it into the middle of the street. 'It's not like I fucking need it anymore,' she spat silently to herself. All it did was remind her of what she couldn't have. They had taken away her life, her oxygen, for no apparent reason, except being born with the wrong chromosome and left her to suffocate to death in agony, alone.

She couldn't even comprehend who she was mad at anymore, but no one was spared from her wrath. Was it the league for deciding they didn't want her? Or her dad for agreeing to such sexist tyranny. Perhaps it was society for engraining the ideas of gender roles into everyone's moldable minds. Or her teammates who were lucky enough to be born males, who took for granted what they were able to do by sheer luck of the draw.   
  
_I've got a big fat fuckin' bone to pick with you my darling  
In case you haven't heard I'm sick and tired of trying  
I wish you would take my radio to bathe with you,  
plugged in and ready to fall_

Physically and emotionally exhausted she collapsed into the lawn, desensitized to the protruding blades of sporadic grass that thrust into her flesh. She wanted nothing more than to be numb to the world right now, the one of which her actions were meaningless and she was nothing short of a victim of circumstance.

She just wanted to play with her team.    
  
_Plugged in and ready to fall_

~*~

**A/N- **There's a lot of whining going in that story I know… but alas it's the truth. Cheers.  
  



End file.
